Customer Reviews

Foyle's Philavery

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You get exactly what is described in the product information and the result is great!

Soon your whole vocabulary may start growing stranger and stranger. You may even lose touch with your life-long friends.

Who cares? This is a super fun way to go!

Christopher Foyle took over the family book store in 1999 after 30 years in the air freight business. He remembers for BNET: "I first began to collect words which I considered to be of 'uncommon usage' at the time of the first Gulf War, in 1991, after General Norman Schwarzkopf described information which he considered to be of little or no value as 'bovine scatology'. Although I was familiar with the word 'bovine', I had to find the meaning of 'scatology'."

He has collected several hundred of his favorites in Foyle's Philavery. "It is not a dictionary, just a collection. I find my words in a variety of places. I take six newspapers a day: five British broadsheets and the 'International Herald Tribune'. Having read one of them, I skim the news pages of the others and mostly concentrate on the editorials, letters, opinion and comments sections. These, together with 'The Economist', 'The Spectator' and specialist periodicals, provide a steady stream of unusual words."

"Philavery" is "a term coined by my mother-in-law during a game of Scrabble. [It is] loosely constructed from Greek phileein ('to love') and Latin verbum ('a word'). The recommended pronunciation is 'fil-a-vuh-ri', with the stress on the second syllable."

There are many treasures here, and his favorite word resonates with cynics like this reviewer: "kakistocracy", a system of government where the rulers are the least competent, least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.

Others that tickled me include:

"Comiconomenclaturist", someone who studies funny personal names.

"Nudnik", Yiddish for a boring or pestering person.

"Haptodysphoria", an unpleasant sensation experienced in response to certain tactile situations. Foyle adds: "During the compilation of this collection I have come across haptodysphorics who experience extreme reactions to anything from kiwi fruit and jelly to hamsters and old forks."

"Groak", to stare longingly at someone who is eating. "This is an ancient art still widely and ably practised by pet dogs everywhere."

"Ophiolatry", the worship of snakes.

"Triskaidekaphobia", a terror of the number 13.

"Limicolous", an adjective for living in mud.

"Kalopsia", a condition in which things appear more beautiful than they really are. "Derived from the Greek terms kallos, meaning "beautiful", and opsis, meaning "sight", this might be a suitable word to remember when we wonder at our friends' and relations' new partner, their irksome children or even their smelly and incontinent yet beloved old pet."

"Aprosexia", an abnormal inability to pay attention, often characterised by a lack of interest in anything. "CA term which sounds like it was invented for use by parents of some teenagers."

"Dangleation", dallying with girls, flirtation. "CA pleasingly suggestive term which has sadly fallen into disuse in modern times, although the concept certainly remains very much alive. Flirtatious and womanising men were known as "danglers" and were particularly active at court and in high society. In an 18th-century letter, Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, writes to a lady friend bemoaning the dreariness of court life in the early years of the reign of George II: "Hampton Court is very different from the place you knew... Frizelation, flirtation and dangleation are now no more..."

"Spraints", otter droppings. The quirky origins of this unusual term lie in the old French word espraintes, which literally means "squeezed out". Other illuminating alternatives to "dung" or "droppings" include "fumet" (deer), "crottels" (hares), "scumber" (dogs, foxes) and the more familiar "guano" (seabirds).

"Palinoia", the compulsive repetition of an act until performed perfectly. This neologism became widely known after it was used as part of a credit for an episode of the 1990s US animated television comedy Pinky and the Brain. My most memorable experience of the concept came during the filming of the TV series "Foyle's War", in one episode of which I had a speaking walk-on part as a bookseller. It is a testament to the patience and professionalism of actors, and the perseverance and perfectionism of directors, to observe how many times each scene was rehearsed and filmed before it was deemed perfect in every detail.

***

I could go on and on, but I'll stop with this thought from Foyle: "One of the pleasures of collecting unusual words is the occasional uncovering of a term for which I had not previously suspected there was any need at all."

There are, of course, many other pleasures, and this wonderful book is filled with many of them.

Robert C. Ross 2008

This is great fun for those who are interested in unusual words, even though there is, I think, a slight padding out. By my reckoning at least, some ten words out of the 105 listed here beginning with the letter A are not really all that unusual. But this must be a somewhat subjective judgment. Some 73 of the words under A I had never come across, and that's a pretty good score for this beautifully produced book. Would make a lovely present for a philaveryphile!

There's something quite appealing about this book. If books can have an ambience, then Foyle's Philavery has it. With its red cloth spine, red fabric bookmark, and odd garden graphic cover, the book whets one's appetite for the treasure of unusual words inside.

Most of the words within are words I've never seen and never shall again. I'm not sure whether I feel cheated or proud because of the handful of familiar words included in this collection. Though I'd met them before, it was nice renewing acquaintance with words like: lacrymose, monstrance,manumit, legerdemain, and phrenologist, a word remembered from Hound of the Baskervilles.

The book presents the words alphabetically as dictionaries are apt to do. With each word a definition and part of speech are included. Occasionally Foyle throws in a second definition, some history of the word, or even an example sentence. Oddly a pronunciation guide page is included at the beginning, but no respellings are included and precious few pronunciation clues.

Lovers of language will love this book. Most others will look at it with puzzlement. As for me, I was enthralled.